ARTICLES
Choose To Change! - Businessgyan - Mon, 15 Mar 2004
I have just returned from a tour of five major cities of our country, doing transformational training for an MNC. While I did my bit and motivated people to understand the need for accepting change and managing it in a positive manner, I learnt so much from this trip. Permit me to share some of this learning with you.
1. The country is going through a sea change in terms of technological advances. This has a cascading effect on business processes and systems. Man, by nature is a creature of habit, and loves to be in his comfort zone. He practically resists change. In India, we have gotten used to Government handling infrastructure – but this is changing. We are used to being protected, and having reservations, but this is slowly, but surely disappearing. But herein is a point of change - what Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel, in his masterpiece called “Only the paranoid survive” calls an inflection point. One can either use the opportunity, change and go up, OR, one can think of the situation as a threat and remain in the comfort zone. Surely we know that to change is to take a risk, but, surely we also know that NOT to change, is taking a bigger risk.
2. “Fortune favours the brave” is a statement that I learnt in school. Let me back this up with another statement “He who does not dare to win, has already lost.” In our country, some of us know how to face challenges, and adversity. What I have found is that people from North India are more open to change, and risk than people from the south. But this is not a rule that applies to all. There are exceptions, and this is evident from the Narayan Murthy’s and the Azim Premji’s. However, further learning – where more people are doing business, and competing - in the Northern parts of the country, there are also lower or thinner margins. The outcome of this is that servicing loses out with thinner margins, and the customer has to fend for himself. Here, vendors are survival oriented, and look at things on a day to day basis. In the south, people are a lot more principle oriented, and will do business only with a reasonable margin, so that they can look to the customer as a long term proposition, rather than a one time entity. Here, the customer is looked at as the extension of the sales force. Let me reiterate that I am not making out a case for a north-south divide, but you as a reader would have some of your own experiences to go by in this regard. My only intention here is to prod you to understand the changing mindset as one travels from state to state across the country.
Then next step is to understand the global scenario.
3. Another key issue to look at is the positive side of the change. But this was not the case when the brilliant Manmohan Singh as Finance Minister opened up the mindset and the borders to bring in competition, and also secured our position. I remember the country pledging its gold reserves to bolster confidence in a sagging economy that was shuddering under the adverse effects of having barely a fifteen day reserve in terms of foreign exchange. At that time, we, as a country, could not have been less stable, and totally paranoid. But, someone at the helm of affairs decided to do something about it, and look where we have reached in just a little more than a decade. We now boast of in excess of a $100 billion as foreign exchange reserves, that is rising steadily at more than $5 billion per month. India is now one of the world’s preferred investment destinations for developed countries.
4. What does this mean to you? Is it only those that change will survive? No, but I would be quick to add, those that are willing to utilize the opportunities provided are those who are first off the blocks, are most often sizzling on the fast track in comparison to those who would like to tread on someone else’s path. Dr. Wayne Dyer often repeats that “The road out in front always has less competition, and more opportunities. No one but ourselves is responsible for the way we address the changes around us.”
5. Life, my dear friends is a constant series of changes - some small, some profound. But change is the platform on which life is built. Why, oh why can we not embrace it with two hands, and take advantage of this? We can, once we understand the need for it. We should, once we know our best options. We must, if we want to survive and thrive in the fast-changing world that we are all, inextricably and wonderfully an integral part of.
Ian Faria. (The author is a corporate trainer, motivational speaker, counselor and consultant who specializes in Organizational and Personal Enhancement). faria@a-pep.com
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